Gardening, Bugs and Interviews

Half the interest of a garden is the constant exercise of the imagination. ~Mrs. C.W. Earle, Pot-Pourri from a Surrey Garden, 1897

No two gardens are the same. No two days are the same in one garden. ~Hugh Johnson

I was reading June's Reader's Digest and came across a one page article called "Big Idea, Small Detail". This one was had one column on gardening and one of the quotes was "It's incredibly messy, ruins your hands, wears holes in the knees of your jeans, ends up costing 40 times more than you think it will, sucks up whole weekends in a single gulp, takes over your dreams and frequently breaks your heart" (from Jennifer Reese on slate.com).

As I sat outside yesterday attacking the hordes of weeds that have taken over nearly every one of my gardens (there is this one particular weed that has an amazing root system -- each plant is connected and when you pull one the roots lead to this maze of more plants... I HATE THEM) I thought of that article.

Yes... by golly, I DO get my clothes dirty. And my hands. I keep my nails short (can't type well with long nails), so don't worry about my manicure. And, since I start many of my plants from seeds, and my flowers are usually swaps from my friends and family, it's NOT more expensive. The heartbreaking part you guys have gone through with me (VOLES!!). Yes, I'm perpetually doing something to maintain the garden, but that's half the fun. Weeding is very "zen" for me: it's mindless, hard work that I do with a the end result of seeing that I've accomplished something. I can contemplate other things while I'm working (I've figured out more plot problems while weeding...) and I love that, when I'm done I can step back and see how much I actually got done. I suppose everyone has different priorities in life, but for me? Keeping my hands clean isn't near the top.

The only downside for me, yesterday at least, was that I came in with ticks. ICK ICK ICK... I was washing my hands and felt a tickle on my neck, looked up into the mirror and ARGH! TICK TICK TICK... slap slap... and down the drain she went (I say "she" because the females are the blood suckers, just like the black flies). Of course, at that point there was no way I could just go on about my merry way... I was certain they were crawling all over me (I'd been weeding underneath bushes, so my whole body had been where the ticks were). I showered and scrubbed my entire body (hair especially) so hard I'm surprised I have skin left.

As you all know, I'm not particularly bug-phobic, but ticks make me flip out. BLECH.

==============================

We saw the prettiest moth on Tuesday. Mostly we have brown or white ones, but this sucker was pink and yellow. I looked online and discovered it was the Rosy Maple Moth.



Aren't they gorgeous?

===============================

Otherwise, it's life as normal here. I might be going to interview with Romance in the Backseat on Sunday if I can rearrange my schedule. It would be much easier if I had someone who could go with me and watch DD and Dd THERE while I was busy. **sigh** DH doesn't like to tell me his plans, so it's difficult to plan anything. In any case, RitB is going to be in Salem, NH (anyone else want to play?) and I'm going to try to get my behind down there. Of course, I'm going to have to... yanno... comb my hair and stuff.

Blog interviews are much simpler. *G*

================================